


worldlines

by orphan_account



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: A Guest for Mr. Spider, Elias is a creeper, M/M, No I'm serious I really don't know how this happened, Oblivious Jon, Time Loop, Weird Plot Shit, elias pov, i don't know what this is, kind of?, protective Elias
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-06 01:59:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15876156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Elias receives a statement before it is given.





	worldlines

**Author's Note:**

> As always, an immense amount of gratitude to Kyros, lontradiction, and Zomburai.

 

            _Statement of Jonathan Sims, Head Arch— [sigh] former head archivist at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding a childhood encounter with a book formerly possessed by Jurgen Leitner. Statement not yet recorded._

Elias’s hand pauses over the slip of paper, one eyebrow quirking up with interest. On the one hand, given that it is handwritten in the Head Archivist’s clear, precise writing, ‘statement not yet recorded’ might mean anything. She is not nearly as meticulous as Elias would prefer. On the other hand, Elias is quite certain that there has been no archivist by the name provided in the history of the Institute, and he has long since ceased to be surprised by events that might in other fields be immediately writable off as hoaxes.

            Skimming quickly through the statement, he frowns. The mention of being a child in the Nineties certainly flags this as either farcical or something much less mundane. Elias has been the head of the Magnus Institute for less than a year, and anyone writing with such a practiced voice is hardly likely to be a child any longer. He flips back to the description. _Jurgen Leitner_. Already a cold feeling of foreboding is trickling down his spine.

            When he reaches the title of the volume in question, Elias’s eyes shoot up into his hair, and he reaches for the telephone to call Artefact Storage. The woman who answers sounds faintly harassed, and when he mentions _A Guest for Mr. Spider_ , she goes very quiet.

            “It’s missing, isn’t it?” Elias asks.

            Soft silence. The breathing on the other end of the phone speeds up. “I-I’m so sorry, sir—I don’t know how it happened—”

            “Please keep me informed,” Elias says pleasantly, and hangs up. He goes back to the beginning of the statement and reads it through, thoroughly this time, making sure he has missed nothing. There is nothing hurt by caution, especially as he is only just beginning to learn the ins and outs of his new position.

            When he has entirely finished, he telephones Gertrude Robinson. She does not answer.

            “Hm,” Elias says, and then he telephones the archives, requesting that they locate a boy named Jonathan Sims, about eight years old, living with his grandmother. Thankfully, the archives are, as always, preternaturally efficient, and he has an address on his desk within an hour and a half. Once again, he tries the telephone; once again, there is no response. Elias’s frown grows deeper. He could send someone to the address; even if Gertrude is away on one of her irresponsible ventures, any one of the current archival assistants could be trusted to recover such a volume with care.

            And yet, some sense tugs at Elias, some feeling trying to pry its way into his brain. It has happened more and more often since he joined the Institute, especially since his ascension to its head. He knows there must be more to it than this _feeling_ that pushes and pulls him, knows that if he can take just one step further, it will go from a feeling to something—else. He does not know how he knows this.

            He follows the urge, in the hopes that this time he will break through to the other side, and rises himself, heading for the exit. He passes no one as exits the Institute, flags down a taxi, and gives the address in a calm, steady voice.

            When he knocks at the door, it’s clear enough that the woman who answers—older, with grey hair that still shows a few streaks of some darker color, has no idea who he is and does not particularly approve of him and his too-nice suit and the curls of hair that he tries to keep in order but that have begun to frizz in the wet weather. She refuses to answer his questions; the only piece of information she has that is of use is that her grandson is missing again and does she need to nail that child’s door shut to keep him inside?

            An unexpected feeling of concern is rising inside Elias, a crawling, unpleasant sensation. He appreciates children, to an extent; the single-minded, concentrated interest they can bring to bear on someone or something is often flattering. But it is not concern for a _child_ that rises inside him now; it is a peculiar, intense desire to meet the _man_ who has penned such a poignant, compelling narrative, who should, if he lives long enough, apparently both successfully rise to Head Archivist and then, somehow, lose the position once again. If he dies now, Elias wonders, or if he is taken by the spiders, will the statement on its yellowed paper vanish from Elias’s office?

            He asks a passerby where to find the nearest park and clutches his umbrella as he hurries, frustrated with himself for the irrational anxiety clawing at the base of his brain. When he reaches the park, he half expects it to be empty—the cold rain has begun sluicing down in earnest, and some part of him cannot believe in anything so fantastical—but it’s not empty. There’s a small, skinny shadow standing off to one side, near a bed of roses, a boy whose nose is buried in a book that Elias can recognize even from here. He’s strangely hard to see, as if he’s shadowed in some supernatural darkness already.

            And there’s a young man as well, watching the child, leaning back against the wrought-iron fence enclosing the park. He seems in no hurry to bother the boy, and Elias watches him for a moment before walking over to him. “I am willing to give you twenty pounds if you take that book from the boy.”

            The youth barks out a laugh. “From our Jonny? I mean okay, but why?”

            “It belongs to my place of employment,” Elias says, implacable and cold, and the young man seems to see something in his eyes because he shrugs uneasily. “Money first,” he says.

            Irritably, Elias pulls out a ten pound note and presses it into a sweaty palm. “Ten more if you _actually_ retrieve it,” he says frostily, and the young man shrugs and levers himself up from the fence.

            It’s interesting to watch the way he goes rigid as he takes the book, and if Elias were more sentimental, he might remain long enough to ensure that the now ordinary-looking boy plucking cobwebs out of his hair in confusion reaches home all right, but he doesn’t think ‘all right’ will ever describe the child again. It’s too late for that. Elias has some sympathy, in a distant sort of way, but there is nothing to be done. The boy is, at least, alive. And there was nothing in the statement about any third party.

~

            Elias awakens from a dream that is not a dream. Since he has begun to discover Gertrude’s true motivations, he has spent most of his nights dreaming about flames devouring the Archives, burning up everything important to him, everything in his life that matters. But this dream—this was not the terror and pain of his entire being ripped from him in violence. This was a memory of a scene he has never seen.

            Gertrude was sat across from a woman with gray hair with a few remaining dark streaks in it. They were having a casual tea and chatting in the aimless kind of way that acquaintances often do.

            “How is Jon?” Gertrude asked.

            Jon’s grandmother seemed willing to talk at some length about her grandson. There was a clipped fondness in her voice but also some exasperation. “And he’s run out of books _again_ , I swear, I don’t know how he does it. His Da was never like this.”

            “His mother and grandmother moreso, perhaps,” Gertrude interrupted, laconically, and Jonathan’s grandmother inclined her head.

            “I still think he’d have been better off with you,” she offered.

            Gertrude shook her head. “My work keeps me far too busy to attend to a young child’s needs.”

            “Jonathan has peculiar needs, but there’s no need to retread old arguments.”

            “Indeed.” Gertrude stirred a block of sugar into her tea. “As it happens, I have some books with me, if you’d like them for him. They aren’t needed at my work anymore and they may be suitable.” She slid a pile of books across the table. On the very top was a familiar white volume with a black web on it and the title scrawled in a childish hand.

            Elias wakes cursing.

~

            One shot will be sufficient, Elias knows this. A single, well-aimed shot, to the head or to the heart. And yet his finger depresses the trigger twice in quick succession, the thought of flames ripping through the Archives making his hand shudder on the gun. Gertrude doesn’t make a sound, certainly not one Elias can hear over the ringing echo of the gun’s double retort. Red spots blossom on her cream-colored sweater, blood soaking through the front, and her lips move for an instant before she dies. Behind her, Elias fancies he can see a small boy with a shock of dark hair and wide, round eyes, clutching a book to his chest, caught and twined around and around with sticky white web. Elias shoots Gertrude a third time, then stands there, his chest heaving even though he has not particularly exerted himself. The smell of hot metal and the acrid smell of gunpowder overwhelm any trace of the scent of blood.

            A clatter on the floor makes Elias look down. The gun is no longer in his hand. He bends over, scoops it up, backs away, as Gertrude’s corpse slowly sinks lower in the chair. His whole body is thrumming with adrenaline, with terror, with a white-hot anger. He needs to leave. He needs to leave, and he needs to _understand_.

~

            Jonathan Sims is nothing like the frightened child Elias glimpsed once twenty years ago. He is angry, abrupt, abrasive—but skillful and dedicated. Already Elias recognizes in the sharp cadences of his speech the turns of phrase in that old (unborn?) statement. He takes to the Archives with an energy and speed that would have warmed Elias to him even if it weren’t for the always slightly stomach-turning feeling that is the approval of the Eye.

            As the future unwinds into the present, Elias realizes that he _likes_ Jonathan. More than that, if he’s honest with himself; he still retains that absurd protective urge that was born from reading that pathetic statement twenty years ago. The more he knows Jon, the worse it gets. For a while, he tries to keep a distance between them, tries not to be drawn in, but it soon becomes obvious that Jon is entirely oblivious anyway, and Elias simply gives up.

            When Jon flees the Archive’s in the wake of Jurgen Leitner’s unfortunate but necessary demise, Elias misses him with a stinging pain that he clamps down on, but it oozes out at the sides. When Jon returns, wielding a lash of delicious compulsion, Elias wants to laugh at seeing him, and takes real glee out of the chance to needle him some more.

            When Nikola Orsinov takes him, Elias is lost. He forgets to sleep; he forgets to eat. There is no way to find the Archivist; the Unknowing has hidden itself well. There is no way to find Jonathan. Elias does his work, as he has always done, snatching sleep in his office, a sleep that is so often a parade of nightmares, of Jon stripped open, bound in cobwebs, dying, dead.

            When Jon returns, anger on his lips, lotion on his skin, Elias can no longer hold himself back, and the anger is rendered into mute confusion in Jon’s eyes as Elias pushes him angrily back against the wall and kisses him, over and over again. As slowly Jon unfurls to kiss him back.

            When they are both thoroughly undone, when Jon is whispering that he _hates_ Elias, that Elias is a terrible damn boss and he should be ashamed of himself and to never, ever let Jon go, pressed in between Elias’s legs up against the wall, Elias pulls back, shuddering, and says, “There is something you need to know.”

            The old faded yellow paper is still in his desk drawer. He slides it across to Jon and waits.

 


End file.
